Based on the fact that the policy held for the duration of my classmate's stay, I'm guessing that he did implement a policy forcibly preventing flash drive use.

Based on the fact that the policy held for the duration of my classmate's stay, I'm guessing that he did implement a policy forcibly preventing flash drive use. But the whole time he was a thorn in everyone's side, maybe because he didn't try to explain himself adequately (or maybe because the military is too burnt out on mandatory training to pay attention). So after he left they probably "fixed" the systems to allow flash drives again.